Opening Leads 26

Submitted by Vil Gravis on Tue, 11/03/2025 - 14:44

If only we could make the sort of opening leads that Deep Finesse always manages to find! Unfortunately we don’t have the capacity to see the full deal a priori, nor the time to work out our best attack even if we saw all the cards, but sometimes it can be a good exercise to try and think like Deep Finesse. There was not one opening leader against a 5C contract who found the ‘killing’ lead, so let us try and go through some ‘Deep Finesse’ thinking without the benefits of seeing all the cards. This deal comes from an X-Clubs session which was played as part of a Swiss Pairs event at our Hutt club. I believe the fact that this was, in effect, teams play should make the killing opening lead much easier to find.

Board 13 from Tuesday 4/03/2025
Dealer N ALL Vul

8753
652
AQJ65
4
JT9
K94
KJT9832
AKQ4
AKQT
T73
76
62
J98743
82
AQ5

The most likely bidding will see East open 1H, West respond 1NT and East raise to 3NT. This should result in down one if North makes the proper opening lead of the queen of diamonds. But, with teams scoring, many Wests are likely to decide to play in 5C, and many even in the match point sessions also chose to bid 5C with similar bidding. At one table I know of, West responded with 2C when East opened 1H, and then when East rebid 3NT, chose to play in 5C. I believe this is a sensible decision at teams scoring.

North now had the opening lead against 5C. This is how Deep Finesse would find an excuse to make the killing opening lead:

  • West has a lot of clubs, almost certainly seven of them
  • West does not have AKQ of clubs or would surely have passed 3NT
  • Most likely West’s clubs are missing at least one top honour. West has a shortage in at least one suit or would have passed 3NT
  • If the shortage is in diamonds, the lead of a low diamond would give the game away, and the ace might find West with a void, so any diamond lead is
    a no no. Which major to lead?

East has opened 1H but obviously also has good spades. Leading through strength in either major is likely to provide discards for declarer one way or another. So, by a process of elimination, there is only one answer: the much maligned singleton trump. Singleton trump leads are usually anti productive. Except when they kill the contract!